Conversational Style

Analyzing Talk among Friends

New Edition

Deborah Tannen

This revised edition of Deborah Tannen's first discourse analysis book, Conversational Style--first published in 1984, examining six speakers over a long Thanksgiving dinner--presents an approach to analyzing conversation that later became the hallmark and foundation of her extensive body of work in discourse analysis.

Conversational Style

Analyzing Talk among Friends

New Edition

Deborah Tannen

Description

This revised edition of Deborah Tannen's first discourse analysis book, Conversational Style--first published in 1984--presents an approach to analyzing conversation that later became the hallmark and foundation of her extensive body of work in discourse analysis, including the monograph Talking Voices, as well as her well-known popular books You Just Don't Understand, That's Not What I Meant!, and Talking from 9 to 5, among others.

Carefully examining the discourse of six speakers over the course of a two-and-a-half hour Thanksgiving dinner conversation, Tannen analyzes the features that make up the speakers' conversational styles, and in particular how aspects of what she calls a 'high-involvement style' have a positive effect when used with others who
share the style, but a negative effect with those whose styles differ. This revised edition includes a new preface and an afterword in which Tannen discusses the book's place in the evolution of her work.

Conversational Style is written in an accessible and non-technical style that should appeal to scholars and students of discourse analysis (in fields like linguistics, anthropology, communication, sociology, and psychology) as well as general readers fascinated by Tannen's popular work. This book is an ideal text for use in introductory classes in linguistics and discourse analysis.

Conversational Style

Analyzing Talk among Friends

New Edition

Deborah Tannen

Author Information

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her academic books include the first edition of this book, published in 1984, as well as Gender and Discourse and the edited volumes Framing in Discourse, and Gender and Conversational Interaction (both OUP, 1993). In all, she has published nineteen books, including most notably The New York Times Best Seller You Just Don't Understand.

Conversational Style

Analyzing Talk among Friends

New Edition

Deborah Tannen

Reviews and Awards

Praise for earlier edition:
"By far the most interesting and accessible--and fun!--introduction to conversational style that I know of. Students love it, and I use it as a required textbook whenever I teach sociolinguistics."--Doug Biber, Northern Arizona University

"Interesting and valuable for both laypersons and students."--Language

"A contribution not only for the general reader but for any researcher or student interested in conversation."--Language and Society